graciasadios

i feel like with our move to mexico, i'm losing touch with life in the states. people and things are more quickly fading away into the past. honestly, this has been both good and bad. bad because it's so much harder for me to keep those i love in my present. good because the bad stuff is just gone. it's hard to hold on to hard feelings when you hear horrific stories every day. yea, so maybe you're a dumb bitch who's been awful to me, but it's not like you blew off my head, chopped up my body, and dumped the pieces in an empty lot. we're good.
the stories are paralyzing. when we first got here, i was too afraid to leave the house. federales patrol the streets, ten to a truck, armed with rifles and machine guns, conjuring up every scary image from the u.s. newspapers. the local news is a constant stream of murder reports. it's a war zone, i thought, we should be evacuated.
but over the past 3 weeks, juarez has grown on me. the stories of violence keep coming, but we haven't seen anything so far. people are out and about, picnicking in the park, going to art galleries, drinking margaritas on restaurant patios, and living their lives. this weekend i saw arte en el parque, sang along with a chumbawumba cover band at applebees (ap-leh-behs), and drank a pina colada at the movies, all in the most dangerous city in the world. there's more to juarez than drugs and murder. almost every car on the street sports an "amor por juarez" sticker, with a heart and peace fingers. well over a million people call this place home, and love it.
a friend volunteered me to take part in an art project collaborating with JR and the Inside Out project to reveal the true faces of juarez. i don't know a thing about taking pictures, but i agreed. at the very least, it'll be an opportunity to explore more of juarez, and seek out the beautiful things. later this month, i'm going to help build a roof on a church. it's in a rough part of town, but i'm sure we'll be safe. hopefully i'll get some good photos for the art project. a photographer friend suggested disposables to get a nice grainy look. grainy enough to disguise the crappiness of my photos? maybe. my plan is to point and shoot in all directions constantly. out of a billion, one has to turn out, right?

vamos a ver.